


come on, give us one more spark

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies), captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about getting to know Steve is, it's easy to forget what he is. It's easy to grab a quick bite to eat with him from a hot dog stand or go to a ball game or beat the crap out of each other on the training mat and forget that to the rest of the world, he's more a symbol, an emblem, than he is a man with shitty taste in baseball teams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come on, give us one more spark

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to get Joss'd to hell come April but I had to get it out of my system. Sam's backstory is a mixture of Ultimates and 616. I decided to split the difference as best I could.

Captain America. Big fucking deal. 

That's what he'd said. Sitting in his tenth grade AP US history class, equal parts bored and annoyed, sneakers jiggling anxiously against the legs of the desk in front of him. Captain America. Hero of the war, legend of the nation -- hey, how could you not like him? Never mind the fact that he was all they ever talked about in their WWII unit, never mind the Tuskegee Airmen, never mind the Red Ball Express. 

He even had one of your own in his group, his teacher had said, all leering condescension. 

One of our own what? Sam had said, raising both eyebrows. He wanted to make him say it, to see the way Mr. Michael's well meaning bullshit stretched across his face, a tight grimace barely concealed. 

He got detention that day. He never did get an answer to his question. 

Captain America. Big fucking deal. 

\+ 

Smart kid with a great big science brain and not a whole lot of money, there were maybe a few ways he could go. 

He chose the Marines and never looked back. 

(That's a lie, a bold-faced lie, he looked back all of the time, thought of what could have been, the youth community center he once poured so many hours into, the work he could have done back home in Harlem that would've been worth a whole lot more than the shit he bled for in the desert so far away but well. Sometimes lying to yourself becomes a necessary survival skill). 

He's got a week left of his second tour when a giant of a man with an eyepatch approaches him about a job opportunity -- a chance to really do something, to help people in a way that the war never did. 

He is bone-tired and shattered in ways that he can't put into words; he's sick to death of problems that feel like they'll never get solved, of feeling like he's not doing anything but making things worse. 

It's an easy sell. 

Sam says yes. 

\+ 

"Have you heard the latest?" Sam takes a swig of his sixth beer, eyes the long line of the woman's throat as she downs her shot of tequila, dishwater blonde hair escaping from her no-nonsense bun, strands clinging to her neck. 

"Are you fishing for information from me, Agent?" Sharon asks, tossing him a flirty smile that has more hard edges than a goddamn pocket knife. 

She's something else, Agent 13. He has a few names for her, calls her Agent 13 and Sharon and _fuck yes, right there_ , and nothing else because she won't let him have anything else. Not her last name, not her past, not even how she takes her coffee in the morning -- nothing. 

He should probably care more about that but well, they're a hell of a team. He knows her in other ways -- knows how she looks just before they spring into action, knows how she looks when they've gone two days without sleep and she's gearing herself up to take the mission even further. 

They fight together about as well as they fuck together. Both are spectacular. 

"They dug Captain America out of the ice. Turns out he's alive, can you believe that?" 

Sharon freezes, beer bottle halfway to her mouth. She sets it down with a clank. "What did you just say?" 

There's an urgency in her voice that he's only used to hearing in the middle of a mission, when they're taking fire and the shit has hit the fan. 

"Yeah? Ran into Coulson in the caf today and he let it slip. Guess he was excited about it, I mean you know how he is, Captain America this, Captain America that." 

Sharon blinks and a soft expression crosses her face, something young and vulnerable that makes him pause -- makes him wish he had a camera so he could snap a photo, save it for later to investigate. 

She digs out a twenty dollar bill and slips it onto the bar counter, shoving her purse onto her shoulder and reaching for her jacket. "I have to go, Sam." 

"What, right now?" 

"Yeah," she says. "There's someone -- someone that I really need to talk to." 

"Wait," Sam says, "do you...do you need help with this someone?"

She places a hand on his arm, looks up at him and smiles. "No. This is something that I need to take care of myself. But...thank you for asking, Sam. I really do appreciate it." 

She's out the door without another word and he's left standing there with two half-empty beers, the traces of her lavender perfume lingering around him, and no clue what the hell just happened. 

\+ 

"Agent Wilson? I'd like you to meet someone." 

Natasha is making her way towards him in the crowded hallway, a tall, broad shouldered man following closely at her back. Sam blinks, surprised. 

He's even bigger in person. 

"Cap, this is Agent Wilson, code name The Falcon. Falcon, meet Captain America." Natasha says this with a bounce to her step, rolling up and down on the balls of her feet, and she's grinning cheekily up at Captain America like she knows she's pissing him off a little and she thinks it's hilarious. 

Captain America grimaces. Sam bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Now there's a face you didn't see in the history books. 

"Just call me Steve," Captain America says, holding out a hand for Sam to shake. 

"It's Sam or Falcon. Don't call me Falc. I don't like it no matter what some people like to think. Tony Stark is an asshole," Sam says. He's babbling, a little, and mortified to be doing it. Captain America, big fucking deal. 

"Yeah. He really is," Steve says, and who knew Captain America could do deadpan. 

He has a firm grip but then again, he would. 

A thought strikes Sam and hell, it's not like he's ever going to have a better chance. "Look, if you don't mind. What can you tell me about Gabe Jones? Something that wasn't in any of the books."

Steve ducks his head and maybe it was a shitty thing to say, asking after a friend that's dead and gone that the man probably remembers like it was yesterday but then Steve looks up and a fond grin is tugging at the edges of his lips, his eyes lit up, and this must be the sort of thing that makes people want to follow him anywhere. 

"He studied French to meet pretty girls," Steve says. 

Sam laughs so hard his ribs start to ache. 

\+ 

The thing about getting to know Steve is, it's easy to forget what he is. It's easy to grab a quick bite to eat with him from a hot dog stand or go to a ball game or beat the crap out of each other on the training mat and forget that to the rest of the world, he's more a symbol, an emblem, than he is a man with shitty taste in baseball teams. 

They go running together every other morning and it becomes normal. Adrenaline running and blood pumping and they stand side by side, hands on their knees, sweat-soaked shirts sticking to their skin, and they could be any two guys in the world. 

So, Sam forgets. 

Then the Winter Soldier comes. 

\+ 

"You think it's crazy, don't you?" Steve asks, fixing Sam with an intent look. Natasha, quiet and unusually subdued at his side, is staring out the window of the Quinjet. They look lost, the both of them, like they've been cast adrift without an anchor. 

It makes Sam uncomfortable, like his skin is tight all over. They're two of the last people he'd ever expect to see so unmoored, so vulnerable. 

He remembers that day in class, after he got back from the principal's office. He remembers slinking back in, resentful, taking a seat at the back. He remembers how a boy in the front row had raised a shaky hand, asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Captain America and Sergeant Barnes were lovers. 

The boy was laughed at, had slunk low in his seat, and Sam had felt a surge of empathy that he didn't know how to put a name to just yet. 

Looking at Steve now, he'd like to give that boy a call and say maybe you were right all along. Because there is something wild in Steve's eyes right now, wild and desperate and furiously hopeful and it's some kind of love, there's no doubt about that. 

And Natasha -- Natasha looks up and Sam's breath catches because she has the same goddamn look in her eyes. She leans her head on Steve's shoulder, a comfort for herself or for him, Sam doesn't know. Maybe both. 

Natasha is always the realist. She knows how this could go. Sam trusts her to put a bullet in the Winter Soldier if she has to but something tells him she's going to try every avenue possible to make sure that doesn't happen. 

Sam meets Steve's gaze. "Does it matter what I think?"

Steve blows out a breath, a hard set to his face. "Usually, yes. Now, not really, no." 

Sam nods decisively, appreciating the honesty. "We could use one more on this. Let me make a call." 

\+ 

Two boys go to war. Two boys become heroes. Two boys don't return from war. It should be the end of the story but it's not, not by a long shot. 

Or, try this: Two boys go to war. War forges the boys into weapons, uses them to do its dirty work, makes them something greater and more terrible than human. 

Or, this: a girl gets thrown out of a burning building, survives, adapts, becomes a weapon in her own right, a legend that cuts and bleeds, whose name sends a shiver down men's spines. 

It's like a tale out of the myths he used to read as a child. 

Christ. He's just a kid from Harlem who should've quit and gone back to work at the youth center years ago, what the hell is he doing here. 

"This is huge, what we're doing here," Sam says, voice low. "These three? They're like tragic Greek heroes or something." 

"Do you know the funny thing about Greek heroes, though?" Sharon says, both hands pulling her hair back before falling to her sides to make sure her guns are secure. "They made a whole lot of bad decisions. Always needed friends to bail them out of tight spots." 

She slaps him on the chest, that fierce battle-ready look that he's come to know so well crossing her face. "You ready, Falcon?" 

"Whenever you are, Agent 13." 

Or, this: one boy goes to war but the war never leaves him. He wants to save the world but the world doesn't want saving. 

He does it anyways.


End file.
